HOW FOREIGN TREATIES ARE MADE

BY HENRY CABOT LODGE

SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS

WE

E all know how important our relations with our neighbors are in daily life. Those next door to us interest us most, but all our neighbors are of importance, because what they do in their houses or on their lands affects us also. Thus it comes about that the law provides carefully for a man's rights in his own property, and with equal watchfulness sees to it that in exercising those rights he shall not do so in such a way as to injure any one else.

Nations in this respect are like individ

uals. They, too, have near neighbors and distant ones, and with all they have relations which are of the utmost importance. There is a body of law known as international law, the outgrowth of time and custom, which defies the rights of nations in regard to one another, and to which, as men have grown wiser, more and more heed and obedience have been paid. But there is one important distinction between the law which governs the relations of individual men to each other and that which is known as the law of nations.

In the former case the law has what is known as a sanction; that is, there is a power behind it, that of the State, capable of enforcing it and of punishing those who disobey it. In the case of nations there is no such power. No nation can be obliged to obey the body of custom known as international law, and it cannot be punished for violating its principles, except by war. After the downfall of

the Roman Empire, and during the long period of disorder and confusion which followed, the only law practically among nations was the law of the strongest. The code was that of Rob Roy:

That he should take who had the power,
And he should keep who can.

With the spread of education and the advance of what we call civilization, nations have drawn away more and more from this primitive code, and international law has grown up out of the effort to find certain general principles by which nations should live and try in some measure to avoid constant recourse to war. For the same objects, but by methods far older than our modern system of international law nations made special arrangements with each other which were set forth in writing and solemnly sealed and signed by the representatives of the nations concerned.

These agreements were for every con

ceivable purpose; sometimes binding the two or more nations that signed to fight together against a common foe, sometimes to make peace with each other, again to settle a disputed boundary, the ownership of territory, the methods of trade, or the rights of the citizens of each country to visit and live in the other. These agreements between nations are commonly known as treaties.

They resemble in their nature the contracts and agreements for the sale or lease of houses or lands and for many other purposes, which men and women are making under legal forms in everyday life. But here again there is an important distinction. The State is behind the law and can enforce the execution of contracts between individuals, but nothing can enforce a treaty between nations except the good faith of the nations which agree to it, or the superior power of one of the nations and its ability to defeat the other in war.

Countless treaties have been made among nations, and sooner or later, as history shows, most of them have been broken, although quite often they have had lasting results. As civilization has advanced, the desire to keep treaties and observe their provisions has, however, steadily increased. Nations have come to hold treaties as more and more sacred, and the opinion of the world against breaking them has become constantly stronger.

It is easy to see, when we think of it, how very important treaties are, and how much their importance has increased in modern times. Agreements which bind nations to make war and peace, which may dispose of a nation's possessions or add to them, and which affect the rights of the citizens of a country, are of the utmost gravity and the most far-reaching results. Therefore the authority to make the treaties which thus bind the nation and settle its relation with all other na